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“Oh…it’s you.”
“Yeah. Me.” Frowning, Ross pulled the sketchbook out from underneath her. “You did this?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing her eyes. Ross remembered the sketchbook Manny had given him.
“Have you been to a school? Perhaps your father paid for one?”
“What? Fuck no,” Angel laughed. “I just like to draw, that’s all.”
“You did this from memory.”
“I imagined it,” she said. “I seen pictures, but I’ve never been to a beach.”
Ross stared down at the drawing, impressed by her technique. The composition was clever, and her sense of light and shadow created a lifelike, dreamy scene that seemed real as any photograph. A girl sat on the sand, staring at the waves. He was reminded of a particular beach in Aruba. He tapped Angel’s nose and said, “Is this L.A?”
Angel shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Maybe? You don’t remember?”
“I’ve never been to the beach. I wasn’t thinking about any place in particular. This just came from my head. Like I said, I’ve seen pictures…”
“How can you be from L.A but you’ve never been to the beach?”
“Why do you think I’m lying about stuff? And how do you even know where I’m from? Stop asking all these questions!” She challenged. “Besides, I don’t remember everything. Just flashes. I know I always wanted to go to the beach but I can’t tell you which one or where. I close my eyes and I see palm trees…But it’s lots of palm trees everywhere, right? Could be any place.”
Ross told her to wait a moment. He went to his room and dug around in his bag from Tokyo, which he still hadn’t unpacked completely. He brought the sketchbook back and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“You tell me.”
She flipped through it, her eyes clouding with confusion. “I don’t get it. Looks like my style, but did you draw this?”
“No. You did.”
“I don’t remember.” She lingered on a drawing of two people in a rather intimate embrace. Her eyebrows went up.
Ross cleared his throat. “Get up.”
“Why?”
“We’re taking a walk. Reckon you could use it.”
“Yeah, make sure the prisoner gets her exercise,” she grumbled, putting the sketchbook down. “I don’t remember drawing any of that stuff anyway.”
He cupped her chin. “You know why I had to lock you in here.”
“No I don’t.” Her eyes were disturbed. “You don’t have to lock me in. I’m not running away and I won’t go through your stuff.”
He glanced down pointedly at the notebook she had been sketching in.
“I had to entertain myself,” she said defensively. “Now can we go? I want to see the garden.” She was eager to escape the room. Ross decided it was probably okay to let her roam the house, with some conditions. As she started swishing out the door he thought of one condition straight away. Catching her arm he said, “I prefer you to wear clothes.”
“I don’t have none to wear,” she retorted.
“You don’t have any…”
“What?”
